Subtext Messages: Hidden Agendas And Why They Matter

Posted on Friday January 15, 2010, 16:37 by Dan Jolin in Empire States

First of all, just to make one thing clear, this blog isn’t about defending my one-star review of Taken, nor is it an excuse to snipe back at those who vehemently disagree with me on our forum. Of course, I’m aware that I’m at one end of the spectrum on this one (Hell, I’m still having arguments with people in the office over it, and my own editor gave Liam Neeson’s rancid rampage of revenge three stars on DVD, as is entirely his prerogative), but I still stand by the review. And I don’t intend on repeating all the same points here.

Indeed, I’m glad it’s led to such a debate (frankly, I could live without the personal insults, but, hey, I’ve always thought that if you can’t handle criticism, you shouldn’t be a critic), yet while following the thread one thing did strike me. It would seem that, by commenting on the film’s insidious xenophobia and misogyny I am, to quote poster Appelby “reading way too much” into something which Dr Lenera describes as “just supposed to be a load of guilty fun”. Irish C goes further: “There was [sic] no lessons to be learnt from this movie, no greater message and no one really was dumb enough to think anyone leaving the cinema would be duped into thinking visiting Paris is dangerous. It was a bloody action movie you fool.”

Well, aside from the fact that it is, in part, any critic’s job to identify subtext and discuss it (would you rather every review was a mere bland recommendation, a binary Go See/Don’t Go See?), I find it genuinely surprising that people should so strongly think an action film — a genre picture — should be inherently absent of subtext.
Why? Just because something is intended purely as an entertainment, it doesn’t mean it can’t have a hidden agenda, intended or otherwise. In fact, the more populist — or rather commerical — a film is, the more chance we have of finding an interesting (or indeed worrying) subtext. After all, if you want your movie to attract as wide an audience as possible, don’t you want its themes to chime as loudly as possible with that intended audience? And genre stories are often the sturdiest, speediest vessels for subtexual cargo. Just look at the Western: High Noon had its anti-McCarthyist subtext (admittedly not very sub), Little Big Man was staunchly anti-Vietnam — and it wasn’t just the left wing sneaking its messages through. The John Wayne-starring Chisum, for example, championed unregulated business.

Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a film studies lecture, so I’ll get to the point: I just don’t see why some people are so outraged by me finding a subtext in a film like Taken. If you don’t agree with it, fair enough. But why respond as if it’s an offensive exercise for me to do so? Was it always this way? Maybe a more politically engaged audience might not have been so bothered. On its release in 1967, some critics attacked Disney’s The Jungle Book for promoting racial segregation. I’m not saying I agree with that (I love The Jungle Book), although I see the point, but it’s an intriguing comment given the context of the powerful Civil Rights movement during the late ’60s. That was an age of turmoil, but also great idealism, where there was a real sense of personal political involvement. These days, after millions marching failed to convince our leaders to keep us out of Iraq, with Obama wussing out at Copenhagen, and the UK having three political parties all gravitating toward the same centre, people can be forgiven for feeling there’s simply no point engaging our minds politically — least of all while we’re watching Liam Neeson righteously attach electrodes to Eurobaddies’ testicles.